


To Love and Hurt and Mourn

by Katalyna_Rose



Series: Vhenan and Associated Stories (Lyna Lavellan) [29]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Before Vhenan, F/M, after Crestwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 17:43:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8455819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katalyna_Rose/pseuds/Katalyna_Rose
Summary: Solas left Lyna. First, he ended their relationship in the most brutal way possible. Then, he left the Inquisition. All alone now, she's discovered yet another reason she wishes he'd stayed. Her friends are little comfort to her now that she knows she'll be raising Solas's child alone.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Beware of spoilers for Vhenan! http://archiveofourown.org/works/8061676/chapters/18471244

Things started moving so fast, faster than they ever had a right to. Lyna didn’t even have the time to mourn the end of her relationship with Solas. She returned to Skyhold the morning after she’d known his body, alone and ashamed, to be swept into a flurry of activity. There were so many things to do that she barely had enough time to breathe. She had reports to give to her advisors about the Temple of Mythal, she had to organize the troops she’d left behind, she had to organize and update their troops all over Thedas, and there was even a problem with their Avaar allies in the Frostback Basin she had to address.

It wasn’t until that night that Lyna found the time to seek out Solas. He was in his usual haunt in the rotunda, painting her latest adventure in the plaster and pigment she loved so much. Seeing him working hurt this time, though. Instead of turning to her with a smile of welcome as soon as she stepped into the rotunda, he seemed not to notice her presence at all. She watched him quietly for a moment. As usual when he painted, his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows yet still splattered with pigment, and he applied his brush gently to his canvas. Each stroke was precise and unhurried, and the picture took shape remarkably quickly. Lyna lost herself in the rhythms of his motions for a while, finding some shred of comfort in the familiarity of it all.

Finally, she worked up the nerve to confront him.

“I’d like to talk to you about what happened before,” she said in a low voice. He didn’t look at her.

“I’m afraid that wouldn’t be appropriate at this time,” he said, and his voice staggered her, as if it were a knife he had shoved in her gut. It was utterly devoid of emotion, and that nearly ruined her then and there. He spoke to her as he might to any passing stranger who came to inquire about his work or his magic or his paintings. He hadn’t spoken to her like that since well before Haven fell. “We must focus on what truly matters. Harden your heart to a cutting edge, and put that pain to good use against Corypheus.”

“It would help me if you could explain why,” Lyna hissed, nearly envying the way he seemed to be able to simply turn off his emotions on command. Whatever pain she felt, he didn’t seem to.

“The answers would only lead to more questions,” he replied, and for a moment she thought she heard desperation in his tone, “an emotional entanglement that would benefit neither of us. The blame is mine, not yours.” His tone almost softened there, almost. “It was irresponsible and selfish of me. Let that be enough.”

“You really don’t let anyone see under that polite mask you wear, do you?” Lyna asked with bitter humor. She threaded her fingers through her hair in irritation, finding it still a bit tangled from having his hands all over it the night before. That realization hurt even more than the conversation, if it could be called that.

“You saw more than most,” he said softly, before his voice rose again to that horrifically neutral tone. “Let me know if I can be of any further assistance to the Inquisition.” It was a dismissal, but she’d be damned if she let him dismiss her.

“Will you talk to me after we’re finished with Corypheus?” she asked him a bit desperately.

He hesitated. Then, “If we are both still alive afterward, then I promise you, everything will be made clear,” he said. It wasn’t enough. But she knew it was all she would get from him. She turned on her heel and left.

 

* * *

 

In the stillness after the final battle, Lyna came to with her ears ringing and the taste of magic in the back of her throat. Beside her, Solas sat back on his heels and sighed wearily. His hands were stained with her blood, and his armor was ripped in many places. As she struggled to focus, he stood and moved away. When she finally made it to her feet, she approached. When she realized he was holding a shattered fragment of the orb Corypheus had been wielding she stopped and grimaced. She’d hoped to save it.

“Solas?” she called softly, wondering if he’d respond to her at all.

“The orb,” he whispered promptly. She was almost surprised.

“Are you sure?” she asked him. “We could take the pieces, try to…”

“That would not recover what has been lost,” he said, and the tone of mourning in his voice seemed wildly out of place, considering all that had happened. With a deep sigh, he put down the shard he held and stood, facing her.

“There’s more, isn’t there?” she guessed when she saw his face. It was filled with the same mourning as his voice.

“It was not supposed to happen this way,” he told her desperately. He took a ragged breath. “No matter what comes, I want you to know that what we had… was real.” The tenderness and regret in his voice made her want to believe it. Her head swam, and nausea threatened, as it seemed to do every time she wondered if he’d truly loved her. She tried to force it back down, with minimal success.

“Inquisitor!” Cassandra called from somewhere below. “Are you alive?” Without replying to Solas, since she had no idea what to say in any case, she turned to face what remained of her people. The fight had been brutal, and they would need her guidance. They would want to celebrate.

They returned to Skyhold, but Solas did not follow. Lyna felt his eyes on her as she addressed the Inquisition, his friends, but when she looked a moment later, he was gone. She tried to smile for her people, tried to celebrate with them, but without Solas it felt empty to her. It had been two months, almost exactly, since he had left her alone and naked, but she wasn’t over him at all. She felt as if she never would be. Still, she postured for her people. She accepted their gratitude and she shared relieved smiles with her companions. She showed her people that she was still alive.

 

* * *

 

“A moment, my lady,” Leliana said as Lyna was about to enter the main hall of Skyhold. It was barely a week after Corypheus’s defeat, and Josephine had a grand party planned for that night. She felt a bit ridiculous in a soft gown, her hair curled and pulled back, but she knew what was expected of her.

She nodded to Leliana and paused her steps to listen. “My agents have found no trace of Solas,” she said. “He has simply vanished.” The former Bard sounded confused and frustrated. “If he does not wish to be found, there is likely nothing we can do, but I will keep looking.”

“I just don’t understand,” Lyna lamented, looking away and wrapping her arms around herself. She didn’t feel right, like she might be sick. But maybe it was just the heart break. “He didn’t even say goodbye.” As soon as the words left mouth, she realized that they weren’t true. He _had_ said goodbye, after a fashion. He’d told her that whatever had once passed between them was real, which was another way to say that he still loved her. Which was his way of saying goodbye. A knife of pain tore through her at the thought. She didn’t know what to think about him anymore.

“The two of you were close,” Leliana said with sympathy. Lyna couldn’t meet her eyes. “Perhaps he had no choice. He might return at any moment.” The woman sounded like she was forcing herself to be cheerful and optimistic. Lyna wished she wouldn’t bother.

“Maybe,” she replied, though she didn’t really believe it. She stepped past Leliana to join the party, but didn’t really hear Leliana’s words about the celebration and the political expectations that would follow.

 

* * *

 

Dawn was nearing before Lyna felt it was socially acceptable to slip away. As she approached the door to her chambers, she heard a chair scrape behind her. When she turned, everyone was on their feet. The entire room, her friends and advisors and all the many nobles and important guests, bowed deeply to her. She hated it. Though she had enjoyed the politics and the puzzle they presented as Inquisitor, she hated the worship. She wasn’t a god, and she didn’t want to be seen as one. She was just an elf, and she didn’t want their reverence. Still, she nodded respectfully back.

As she straightened, the dizziness that assaulted her took her completely by surprise. She didn’t even have time to gasp in shock before she felt her legs give out beneath her. She didn’t even remember hitting the floor.

 

* * *

 

Lyna’s senses returned slowly. First, she was aware that she was lying down. Then she realized she was in her own bed. Then came an odd tingling across her body, an aftereffect of sustained magic. Low voices drew her attention next.

“You know she’s not going to take it too well,” Bull said. Why was he in her room?

“Neither am I!” Dorian hissed back. “That he would… And then leave her? I’m simply appalled!”

“I know, kadan,” Bull replied. “But this isn’t about you. It’s about her. Try to keep it that way.”

“What’s going on?” Lyna asked, but her voice barely sounded like hers. In an instant, Dorian and Bull were beside her. Dorian sat beside her and Bull hovered just over his shoulder. Both looked troubled.

“What is it?” she asked, more alert by the second. Their discomfort was starting to worry her. Dorian took her hand, and she edged toward panic. He wasn’t one for tactile comfort.

“You passed out,” the mage said softly. “At the party. In front of everyone. Bull and I brought you up to your rooms and I used my magic to try to figure out what was wrong to make you collapse. It’s…” He stopped, and didn’t seem inclined to continue. He looked away and groaned oddly. Bull’s large, heavy hand descended on his shoulder.

“Boss,” he said, his voice equally soft and sympathetic. “You’re pregnant.”

For a moment she just stared, certain that she’d misheard. Then she bolted out of bed, completely unmindful of the dizziness returning in force. She paced for a few steps, then stopped. She gripped her hair, her fingers turning into claws against her scalp and her face twisting. She clenched her teeth and fell to her knees, her anger and agony and whatever else forming a hard knot in her chest. She felt both hot and cold at once, and entirely overwhelmed. The nausea, the dizziness, the picky eating, and her insomnia weren’t stress, or not entirely. They were symptoms of pregnancy. And she’d been too distracted, busy, and hurt to notice, to even consider that was what it could be.

And Solas was long gone.

She shrieked. In her fury and agony, her voice tore from her throat to split the air. When she finally ran out of breath, her hands fell limply into her lap, strands of white blonde hair clinging to them after being ripped out of her scalp. The tears came next, hot and fast, dripping down her face. She didn’t even really feel them, though. She was falling into a strange sort of numbness, and even the cold stone of the floor under her didn’t feel like anything at all. She felt weightless, almost, floating on the tides of her grief.

Strong arms scooped her up off the floor, and Bull laid her gently on her bed. He tucked her under the covers gently and tried to wipe away her tears, but they were coming too fast for him to keep up. He sighed heavily, and Dorian sat at her other side and took her hand again.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, voice suspiciously thick. “If you want, I can… take care of it.”

She blinked, coming to a bit, enough to understand what he was saying. “No!” she cried, and pushed him away. “Don’t you dare take my baby!” He moved away, hands raised to show that he was harmless, and her tears became sobs. She didn’t know what to think or feel about any of this, but she knew she would keep the child. She wouldn’t give this up simply because Solas was gone.

Bull gathered her up and tucked her against his chest as the sobs wracked her. He petted her hair gently, soothingly, and hummed a bit. She curled into him, seeking comfort she wouldn’t find. She pressed tight fists against her stomach and the life that was growing there.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to do something about what happened when Lyna found out that she was pregnant in Vhenan. All of this technically happens in chapter three of Vhenan. I like how it turned out.


End file.
